Why so many problems burning distributions?
 

I've downloaded and burned around 15 different ISO distributions in the last week, both on CD and DVD and around 80% have failed!
I don't think I've had one failure burning my normal PC stuff in the last few years.
They all seem to write OK but when I do a verify on completion there's nearly always an error and on testing them I can't get far into the install process before it fails.
Is it something to do with Linux CD formats as I notice they all have a "Check CD for errors" option before installing which is never needed on Windows software.

WHY????

I've used both Nero 8 and PowerISO on 3 different XP PC's.

Chris.

I've never experienced 1 Bad Brand name CD or DVD when burning ISO, which I do regularly - 4 this year
(Fedora, Ubuntu, RHEL, Solaris, Windows)

Ms Stevie

I really can't understand it either.
I've used 3 or 4 different brands of CD and DVD and used different drives to burn them.
Never had a problem it's only with Linux stuff that I've started to play with this week.
Just bought some decent Memorex CD's and still the same with those.
I've checked the image files with MD5 sums and they're definately OK as I would expect.

Have you tried burning the CD or DVD at lower speeds? Make sure your CDs or DVDs are compatible with the speed you are burning at. I have run into this problem before but once i dropped the speed down it worked fine.


-weisso

Good idea.
I've been burning them at less than the maximum they're marked with but some of them were unbranded disks and I suppose they might have been exagerating the speed rating.
I'll try these new Memorex disks at half speed and see if it makes a difference.
I just can't see why using the same disks and buring ISO's regularly for Windows software it's suddenly been a problem with Linux ISO's.
Very odd.

Yes i can see your concern with that. But there are sooo many factors that can come into play when burning, and i know with Nero there is a lot of speculation as to what causes burning problems. If you are concerned or need some more information check out the cdfreaks forums, they have extensive discussion about this:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/

-weisso

Every download error I've had on a .iso file has been obvious before I checked an MD5 (the downloaded file size was a fraction of the correct size). By the time I'm ready to check an MD5, I've never had a single one bad.

I burned .iso images in Windows with three different freeware programs (though mostly ImgBurn) on several different computers with several different brands of CD and DVD media. I never once tweaked any speed or related parameter. I left strictly the defaults picked by those programs. I never had a failure. Every time the CD or DVD was burned perfectly. Sometimes the Linux distribution wasn't perfect, but then I could read the .iso image back off the CD and check and discover the MD5 was still perfect.

I believe this is an option for all the people who don't check md5sums or the like. Linux disks are downloaded from the internet for the most part, and therefore it is a good idea to have an option to test your disks, in case the download was corrupted. With Windows, this is not an issue as all the disks are produced by professionals (the ones you may have downloaded from the internet are illegal, and obviously doesn't count :P)

- Findus